INDIANAPOLIS — When Ryan Newman returned to Stewart-Haas Racing in 2013, it was different organization.

It was an organization with a third Sprint Cup team for Danica Patrick. Patrick got the crew chief and crew that had worked with Newman the last four years.

Newman? He got his old crew chief back in Matt Borland, who helped lead Newman to much success a decade ago at Penske Racing. But with Borland came a group of engineers and other crewmen who had yet to experience the travel and rigors of working full time in the Sprint Cup Series.

Newman, who signed a one-year deal to return to the team, has seen that as a hurdle to success this year. And maybe that’s why his win Sunday in the Brickyard 400 was so big and could have an impact beyond Indianapolis Motor Speedway.

This is a team trying to prove themselves with a driver who already has been told he won’t return to SHR in 2014 because the team has hired Kevin Harvick.

Newman doesn’t have any bitterness toward not returning next season — it’s hard for him to be bitter at good friend Tony Stewart, the co-owner of the team. And he’s not bitter about losing his crew to Patrick because, frankly, the team had seemed to stall the last couple of years.

But that doesn’t mean the transition wasn’t frustrating.

“It's awesome because those guys struggled a lot at the beginning,” Stewart said. “It's just good for our whole organization. … It's days like this that make up for the rough start we got to the year.

“For those guys to be able to go from sitting behind laptops a lot in the shop, being in aero rooms, seven-post rigs, now being on the road and to be kissing the bricks today, that's a pretty strong statement.”

SHR has a history of crews making statements in awkward lame-duck situations. Stewart won the Sprint Cup title in 2011 with crew chief Darian Grubb, who knew for most of the Chase that his contract wasn’t being renewed for 2012.

Borland said while his guys saw that Grubb performance, that is not what keeps them from freaking out about uncertainty in 2014.

Instead, it’s the same competitive drive that keeps them going. They weren’t happy being 16th in the standings and winless heading into the 20th race of the season.

“We brought our best car here that we've ever built. We're hoping by next week or two weeks from now to have an even better car. Every week we didn't win, we went back to the shop knowing we needed to get better. It wasn't bad luck. We weren't giving Ryan a good enough car.”

Borland admitted that he doesn’t know what he’s doing in 2014. He has been at Stewart-Haas Racing for six years and this is his first time back in a crew chief role since 2008.

“Obviously Ryan is a great friend,” Borland said. “We've had tons of history together. I don't want to see him go. It's a shame. I feel like if I was better prepared to start this season, maybe things would have changed, been different.

“So from that end, it is hard. … At this point, I'm not sure what next year is going to bring. Right now, 100 percent of my focus and our whole team's focus is on doing as best we can in these next six races and the next 16.”

The one thing they all know is that a win certainly doesn’t hurt any of their prospects for 2014.

And they know something else: It was a much better feeling leaving Indianapolis than it was New Hampshire two weeks earlier, the week Newman got word of his free-agent status, got into a wreck with Kurt Busch and then was called an “ogre” by Kurt’s brother Kyle.

While joking that “ogres don’t have emotions,” Newman did admit it’s been emotional over the last couple of weeks, which included the final off week of the season.

“The emotions have been an absolute rollercoaster,” Newman said. “(New Hampshire) was a disaster. We got crashed out, everything that was said. We got through all that stuff. Talked about it.

“That weekend off, I think, was good timing, to be able to hit control-alt-delete. … It makes it better looking for something for 2014, also for Matt. There's a lot of questions to be answered. We'll get through all that. But today we're celebrating a victory.”